The Financial Times:
Apple is closing in on its largest ever acquisition with the planned $3.2 billion purchase of Beats Electronics, the headphone maker and music streaming operator founded by music producer Jimmy Iovine and the hip-hop star Dr Dre.
This kinda doesn’t make any sense to me. Beats does two things; headphones and streaming music.
Beats’ headphones—all brand, and garish style—are nowhere near the aesthetic (and polish) of an Apple product. If Apple wants a headphone maker, why not look at a company like Bowers & Wilkins, whose product quality aligns much more closely?
So, streaming music. Obviously Apple could incorporate that into the iTunes canon, but why bother? Is it so hard to extend the current iteration of iTunes into a streaming model? Doesn’t make any sense to me.
A plausible explanation I’ve heard is Apple buying Beats for streaming rights, thereby passing over stubborn music executives unwilling to cut Apple a streaming deal. But, as Gruber points out in a post update, that those agreements would be null and void in an acquisition scenario.
Hell, who knows at this point. Maybe Apple just wants to own a company that’s already set up for music streaming cross-platform? That’s honestly my best guess right now.